"Officially named in 1992, the Spring Symposium
tradition has been kept up since: a high-profile seminar
for PhD students to present their work, with external
evaluators giving valuable feedback both on the
scientific content and presentational skills of the
speaker"

Unlike the name suggests, the very first Spring Symposium
was not held in the spring, but in November 1990 at
Tvärminne Zoological Station, south coast of Finland. In
Tvärminne, during the official Department Days of the former
Department of Zoology. an environmental seminar was
organized where many post graduate students gave talks. As
part of the seminar, a competition for the best talk was
arranged. This laid the basis for annual student symposium
that was officially started a year later.

In this very first occasion Ilkka Teräs, a former
Departmental Coordinator and current Docent of
University of Helsinki, was acting as the secretary of
the meeting, while the professors and supervisors acted
as evaluators. The winner of the best talk was a PhD
student Jari Heikkilä, currently
working as a Senior
Researcher in the Finnish Environment Institute. Jari
presented his research plan about the interactions
between voles and small Mustelids on the islands of Lake
Inarijärvi and was supervised by Ilkka Hanski. The prize
for the winner was decided during the bus trip back to
Helsinki as a sum of money to buy a laptop computer.
When Teräs analyzed the votes later, he pointed out that
it would be wise to use independent evaluators to get
neutral opinions, and thereafter the evaluators came
from outside the department, in most cases from abroad.
The idea of inviting external evaluators to judge the
presentations and provide feedback to students was
adopted from the University of Uppsala in Sweden, where
a similar annual post-graduate symposium had been
started by professor Staffan Ulfstrand in the 1980s.
Ilkka Hanski, Esa Ranta and others at the Department of
Zoology in Helsinki were familiar with the successful
symposium in Uppsala and wanted to introduce it to
Helsinki.

The Tvärminne seminar was closely followed by the sudden
death of Olli Järvinen (the 29th of
November 1990 at the
age of 40), Professor of Zoology at the University of
Helsinki. After this sad event, a yearly seminar was started
and was first held in April 1991 under the name “April
Symposium”. This was the occasion when the prize for the
best presentation was officially named as “Olli's prize” by
Ilkka Hanski, who was an acting
Professor of Zoology at the
time, as a tribute to Olli’s memory.

Officially named in 1992, the Spring Symposium tradition
has been kept up since: a high-profile seminar for PhD
students to present their work, with external evaluators
giving valuable feedback both on the scientific content and
presentational skills of the speaker. The sum for the Olli’s
prize was initially 5000 Finnish marks (roughly 840 euros),
and from the very beginning it has been targeted to cover
travel and accommodation expenses for attending an
international congress. Today the 1000 euro grant is
provided by
LUOVA graduate school (Finnish School in
Wildlife Biology, Conservation and Management).

The moose which has been in the cover of all
Symposium abstract books is drawn by Ph. Lic.
Päivö Somerma
in the late 1980's, and was originally used as
the logo of the Department in stationeries. The model of
the moose is
the statue located in front of the Museum
of Natural History in Helsinki and has been sculptured
by Jussi Mäntynen, a former
conservator in the Zoological Museum.

Olli Juhani Järvinen was born in
Jyväskylä, Finland, 3rd
of October in 1950. He obtained his MSc degree at the
University of Helsinki in 1973, after which he worked in
ornithological projects in Sweden, Poland and France. In
1980 he returned to Helsinki where he defended his PhD
thesis on the "Ecological zoogeography of Northern
European bird communities". Olli acted as Professor of
Zoology at the University of Helsinki from 1981-1990.
An enthusiastic bird watcher, his greatest scientific
contributions came from ornithology and, in particular,
the community structure of birds. Within his short-cut
career Olli published over a hundred of scientific
articles, mainly on ecology, zoogeography and population
genetics, in addition to hundreds of non-scientific
articles, reviews, books and booklets. He was a
passionate speaker for wildlife conservation and
believed in nature protection based upon sound
biological research. Olli strongly disapproved of using
vague phrases such as "the delicate balance of nature"
and the assumed "truths" in the field that had, in
reality, never been tested. With numerous publications
and talks aimed at both the public and scientists, he
brought hard facts and data to the ongoing discussion of
wildlife protection in Finland. A vast majority of
Finnish biologist today also know Olli as one of the
authors of the book Sammuuko suuri suku? / Sista
paret ut? ("Last pair out?") – a deep and critical
introduction to nature protection published in 1987, and
a mandatory reading to all applicants of the university
entrance examination in Biology in the 1990s.

Olli was a diplomatic negotiator, and as a board member
of the Finnish Cultural Foundation he greatly improved
the facilities and working climate for young scientists.
Through his connections, Olli arranged for acknowledged
researchers from foreign institutions to visit the
department, bringing new life to advanced-level
seminars. Olli’s commitment to teaching began during his
studies in the Genetics Department, where he played a
large role in developing courses. As a professor, he was
appreciated for his ability to combine a broad knowledge
of theory and solid experience of fieldwork. A good
example of his broad minded approach was a new field
course, in which students would learn the latest methods
of population genetics while addressing ecological
questions. Olli’s attitude towards students was very
encouraging, and he also established the so-called
"Mickey mouse" seminar, where PhD students could present
their research plans to get feedback about their ideas.

Counted in years, Olli’s life was tragically cut short;
counted in deeds and influence it was exceptionally
long and bright. In 1991, during the first official
Spring Symposium (named April Symposium back then), the
prize of best presentation was named Olli's prize to
honor Olli's lifework and the legacy he left behind.

The very first winner of Olli’s price was a young PhD
student named Liselotte Sundström
, who presented her
work about the mating and dispersal patterns of a red
wood ant species Formica truncorum in Spring Symposium
in 1992. Today, Liselotte Sundström, or Lotta Sundström
as most of us know her, is an acting Professor of
Evolutionary Biology at the Deparment of Biosciences,
leading a
research group that focuses on social
evolution of ants.

The history of the Spring Symposium is quite well
documented – how it was initiated and the history behind
Olli’s Prize. Less is perhaps known about the day-to-day
life of PhD students, and the atmosphere at the
department at the time when the Spring Symposium was
initiated. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s only some
15-20 post-graduate students were working towards their
PhD degree within the department of zoology as it was
then called. Also, rather few post-doctoral researchers
were around, and the number of staff members was also
much smaller. At the time post-graduate studies formed
an unstructured process where supervision was almost
non-existent – the notable exceptions being those
supervised by Olli Järvinen and some of the younger
staff members – and nobody really even dreamt of PhD
courses. Olli Järvinen was instrumental in creating an
open and supportive atmosphere, where students were
encouraged to get engaged in dialogue with each other,
and create their own discussion circles. A proper
curriculum for post-graduate studies was thus only
beginning to form. This was the time when Ilkka Hanski
and Esa Ranta were just past their post-doctoral period,
and were looking for more permanent positions in the
department. During the 1990’s they, and Yrjö Haila, were
to shape the future of the department together with the
PhD-students at the time. I personally remember this
time as the period when, owing to the absence of PhD-
courses, post-graduate students created and held their
own courses and so gained the necessary study credits
and funding for their degree. As a side effect we also
gained very broad insights in ecological and
evolutionary theory. It was indeed a very different
world in which pressures for time constraints, public
outreach, career development and job prospects were much
less prominent than today. I certainly did not give much
thought to these matters.

"But the atmosphere was the same: excitement while
preparing presentations, over what the invited experts
would think about the projects, how the presentation
would be received, and – above all – what questions
would be posed."

The start of the Spring Symposium (or the April
Symposium as it was then called) heralded an entirely
new era in doctoral training at the department – it
formed the first structured form of post-graduate
training organized by the department. Although the
number of PhD students was only a fraction of that
today, almost twenty student presentations were given
already in the first years. In addition staff members
also gave presentations. But the atmosphere was the
same: excitement while preparing presentations, over
what the invited experts would think about the
projects, how the presentation would be received, and –
above all – what questions would be posed. The
symposium was held in the large lecture hall at the
zoological museum where the department also was
located. The lecture hall was usually jam-packed with
staff and students alike. This difference in attendance
between the early times and today sadly demonstrates
the extent to which the work load of both staff and
students has changed during the past twenty years.
But it also reflects the fact that those in the lead in
the early 1990’s have moved on and new people will have
to shoulder the responsibility. This has been done
admirably by the PhD students who now run the entire
organization.

Some aspects of the Spring Symposium have changed over
time, as is appropriate. Most of these represent
improvements – most notably the quality of the
presentations. The change from hand-scribbled barely
legible overhead sheets to visually very appealing
powerpoint slides, and from nervous mumbling from notes
to confidently and professionally delivered
presentations is remarkable. What I miss is the
informal gathering of guests, staff and students in the
local pub after each day, where lively discussions
continued until early morning. More than once one or
more of the guests had to be more or less carried home
afterwards. The move to Viikki and the loss of the local
pub with a cozy atmosphere has changed this tradition to
a more formal dinner, but the element of dialogue
between students and leading scientists is still there.
The final evening party is perhaps all an older staff
member can cope with so keep up this tradition.

Academy Professor Ilkka Hanski's
last talk in the Spring Symposium was in
1993 when also members
of the department staff were participating. Ilkka
has been following the evolution of the symposium
throughout its life span during which numerous Ilkka's
students have been giving talks on various topics. Today
Ilkka Hanski leads
the Metapopulation Research Group at
the University of Helsinki working on topics ranging
from evolutionary genetics to landscape-level
metapopulation ecology.

Twenty years is a long enough time for research topics
to change substantially. In our field, community ecology
was especially topical in the 1970s and behavioural
ecology in the 1980s, while in the past decade many
ecologists have started to employ molecular biology
tools in their research. The presentations that have
been made in the Spring Symposia (SS) over the past 20
years provide interesting material to examine how
ecology and evolutionary biology have changed in
Helsinki. Or have they?

Figure
1 shows a rough classification of SS
presentations into four categories. Population and
community ecology appears to have experienced a steady
decline from around 60% of the presentations in the
early 1990s to just over 20% in recent years.
Evolutionary biology combined with behavoural ecology
have retained their share at around 40% over the years.
I clumped evolutionary biology with behavioural ecology
because many presentations could have been classified
into one or the other. Population genetic and
phylogenetic talks started to appear in the late 1990s
and they now account for about 20% of all the talks,
while talks that I considered to represent conservation
biology are most recent, starting to appear in the past
10 years. One should not read too much into the details
in Figure 1, because my classification is crude.
Nonetheless, but what is very clear is the increasing
diversity of research approaches and topics over the
years. In addition to what is shown in Figure 1, we have
had smaller numbers of presentations in taxonomy,
morphology, developmental biology, physiology and theory.
The numbers of these talks have slightly increased over
time, further adding to the diversity of topics.

Figure 1 (click to enlarge)

It is of interest to examine which taxa have been
studied in empirical projects
(Figure 2). Our department
has had a great tradition in small mammal studies, which
were still doing well in the 1990s, but the numbers of
talks concerned with mammals have declined to almost
nothing in the past years. The numbers of projects on
fishes and birds have not changed much, while studies
on insects have somewhat increased, and nowadays about
half of the SS talks are on insects. A few talks on
other inverbrates, plants and fungi add to the
diversity.

The classifications that I have produced do not touch
some of the most interesting and important issues, such
as which kinds of statistical analyses have been applied
in empirical studies, and how closely the empirical
projects are related to relevant concepts and theories,
and which kinds of concepts and theories. Unfortunately,
it would be difficult if not impossible to analyze such
questions with the SS abstracts. However, without any
analyses I can testify, having been around for the past
20 years, that huge progress has been made on these
fronts, as well as in the general quality of
presentations. I expect that further intergration of
ecological and molecular studies as well as of empirical
and theoretical studies will take place in the coming
years and be reflected in SS presentations. The current
diversity of approaches and topics is a distinct
strength of ecology and evolutionary biology in
Helsinki.

Figure 2 (click to enlarge)

"However, without any analyses I can testify, having been
around for the past 20 years, that huge progress has
been made on these fronts, as well as in the general
quality of presentations."

So with 20 years of data what can a scientist do but grind it through an analysis (or at
least make graphs in excel)? Several patterns emerge and reveal changes in both the
composition of presenters, and the type of science done.

First, there has been a steady
increase in the number of contributions.
Second, although still lower than the number of native Finns among the presenters, the
number of non-native presenters has steadily increased (Figure
1). This clearly reflects the
extensive international exchange that all the units involved have experienced. Finally,
there has also been a clear improvement to the gender balance among the presenters (Figure
2).
Indeed, the gender balance has been pretty even during the past 10-15 years, but 2012
stands out as the first time there are many more female than male presenters. May be we
should start worrying? Be this as it may, the science is alive and well.

Figure 1 (click to enlarge)

The years have
seen changes in the content and approaches. Applied ecology
is advancing strongly, and this means there will be scientists properly trained in
ecological theory to provide expertise to policy-makers. None the less, also the basic
science is advancing in giant leaps, with new approaches allowing entirely new questions
to be addressed. This means we are not stagnating, but rather staying at the forefront of
our chosen field of science.